Arrest of Bradley Manning
Encyclopedia
Bradley E. Manning is a United States Army
soldier who was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq
on suspicion of having passed restricted material to the website WikiLeaks
. He was charged in July that year with transferring classified
data onto his personal computer, and communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source. An additional 22 charges were preferred
in March 2011, including "aiding the enemy," a capital offense, though prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. He was found fit to face court martial
in April 2011, and currently awaits the first hearing.
Manning had been assigned in October 2009 to a unit of the 10th Mountain Division, based near Baghdad. There he had access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet
), used by the United States government to transmit classified information. He was arrested after Adrian Lamo
, a computer hacker, reported to the FBI that Manning had told him during online chats in May 2010 that he had downloaded material from SIPRNet and passed it to WikiLeaks. The leaked material is said to have included 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables
; footage of a July 2007 Baghdad airstrike
; and footage of the May 2009 Granai airstrike
in Afghanistan.
Manning was held in maximum custody beginning in July 2010 in the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico
, Virginia, which in effect meant solitary confinement
, conditions that Amnesty International
called harsh and punitive. In April 2011, 295 scholars, including legal scholars and philosophers signed a letter saying the conditions he experienced amounted to a violation of the U.S. Constitution; later that month the Pentagon transferred him to a medium-security facility in Fort Leavenworth
, Kansas, allowing him to interact with other pre-trial detainees.
An article 32 hearing
will be held on December 16 in Fort Meade, Maryland.
, to Susan Fox, born in 1953 in Wales, and her American husband, Brian Manning. His father had been in the United States Navy
for five years; his parents met when his father was stationed in Wales at Cawdor Barracks. Manning was raised in Crescent, where his father worked as an Information technology
manager for a rental car agency. The younger Manning was small for his age—as an adult, he reached just 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) and weighed 105 lb (47.6 kg)—good at the saxophone, science, and computer games, and even in elementary school had said he wanted to join the U.S. Army. One teacher told reporters that Manning was smart and opinionated, but was never in trouble. He was one of the few people in his community who openly rejected religion; David Leigh
and Luke Harding
write that he would refuse to do homework related to the Bible, and remained silent during the reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance
. They also write that his father was strict with him, which may have contributed to his becoming introverted and withdrawn, something that deepened when at age 13 he began to question his sexual orientation.
One neighbor said his mother had difficulty adjusting to life in the U.S., and his father was often away, so Manning was largely left to fend for himself. His parents divorced when he was 13, and he moved with his mother to Haverfordwest
, Wales, attending the local Tasker Milward school
. One girl told a reporter that Bradley had "an attitude." He was said to have spent lunch time at the school's computer club, building his own website. Tom Dyer, who was at school with him, told reporters Manning would speak out if there was anything he disagreed with, which included having altercations with teachers. He said Manning was bullied because he was an American, the only one at the school; other students would impersonate his accent and mannerisms. He was also targeted for being effeminate; Denver Nicks writes that he had told his schoolfriends in Oklahoma that he was gay, but he was not open about it at school in Wales.
He was miserable in Wales, and decided to return to the United States after sitting his GCSEs
, moving in with his father, sister, and his father's second wife in Oklahoma City. He took a job with a software company, Zoto, and was apparently happy for a time, but was let go after four months, and became increasingly depressed. In March 2006, he reportedly threatened his father's wife with a butcher's knife during an argument. She called the police, and he was escorted from the house. He lived in the pick-up truck his father had given him, and took several low-paid jobs, before moving in with his father's sister, Debra Manning, in Washington, D.C.
, Missouri, and after graduating in April 2008 moved to Fort Huachuca
, Arizona, where he trained as an intelligence analyst
. Nicks writes that he was reprimanded while there for posting messages to friends on YouTube that apparently revealed sensitive information. In August 2008, he was sent to Fort Drum
in Jefferson County, New York, where he waited to be sent to Iraq. It was while there in the fall of 2008 that he met Tyler Watkins, with whom he had his first serious relationship, posting happily on Facebook about it. Nicks writes that it appears to have ended by September 2009, though Leigh and Harding say it ended around May 5, 2010. Watkins was studying neuroscience and psychology at Brandeis University
near Boston, and Manning would regularly travel there to visit him. It was at Brandeis that he was introduced to Watkins's network of friends, and the university's hacker community, as well as its ideas about the importance of information being free. He visited Boston University's "hackerspace
" workshop, and met its founder, David House, the computer scientist and MIT
researcher who has been allowed to visit him in jail twice a month.
While at Fort Drum, Manning had already begun to lose control, according to Steve Fishman in New York magazine, falling out with roommates, and screaming at superior officers. He said he was being bullied for being gay, and by August 2009 had been referred to an Army mental-health counsellor. In October 2009, despite the doubts about his fitness to be deployed, he was sent to Iraq with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division
, based at Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad. His unhappiness and loneliness continued there. Analysts were working 14–15 hours at a time in what he described as "a dimly lit room crowded to the point you cant move an inch without having to quietly say ‘excuse me sir,’ ‘pardon me sergeant major’ ... cables trip you up everywhere, papers stacked everywhere ..." He called it Groundhog Day.
He was sent to a chaplain
after officers noticed what ABC News
said were "odd behaviors." In November 2009—the same month he allegedly first contacted WikiLeaks—he wrote to a gender counselor in the United States, said he felt female, and discussed having surgery. The counselor said it was clear that he was in crisis, partly because of his gender confusion, but also because he was opposed to the kind of war that he now found himself involved in. On May 7, 2010, he reportedly punched a woman officer in the face, and was demoted from Specialist
to Private First Class
. He was also told he would be discharged from the army.
—an Australian with a background in computer hacking, and the de facto editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks—who had the idea of creating what he saw as an "open-source, democratic intelligence agency." The wiki element was abandoned, but the site remained open for the anonymous submission of leaked documents, using OpenSSL
, Freenet
, PGP, and Tor
.
The New York Times wrote in December 2010 that the U.S. government was trying to discover whether Assange had been a passive recipient of material from Manning, or had encouraged or helped him to extract the files; if the latter, Assange could be charged with conspiracy. According to Daniel Domscheit-Berg
, a former WikiLeaks spokesman, part of the WikiLeaks security concept was that they did not know who their sources were. WikiLeaks did not identify Manning as the source of the material, and according to NBC in January 2011, the U.S. government could find no evidence of direct contact between Manning and Assange. Manning told Lamo during their online chats in May 2010 that he had developed a relationship with Assange, but knew little about him. Lamo alleged later that Manning also said he had communicated directly with Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service, and that Assange had "coached" him. Lamo is the only source of these allegations; he said these statements from Manning were in the unpublished parts of the chat logs, but that the FBI had taken his hard drive so he no longer had access to the logs.
, and in late 2009 he found the Apache helicopter video. He told Lamo: "At first glance it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter. No big deal ... about two dozen more where that came from, right? But something struck me as odd with the van thing, and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory. So I looked into it."
Manning's former partner, Tyler Watkins, told reporters that, while on leave in Boston in January 2010, Manning said he had found some sensitive information and was considering leaking it. During the same month Manning began posting on Facebook in a way that suggested he was upset about something. According to The Daily Telegraph, he wrote, "Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast," and said he was livid after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend."
On February 18, WikiLeaks posted the first of the material that allegedly came from him, a diplomatic cable dated January 13, 2010, from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik
, Iceland—a document now known as Reykjavik13. In the chat log, Manning called this a "test" document. On March 15, WikiLeaks posted a 32-page report written in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Defense about WikiLeaks itself. On March 29, it posted U.S. State Department profiles of politicians in Iceland.
On April 5, it published the Apache helicopter video of the July 2007 Baghdad airstrike, which Manning is alleged to have passed on in February; WikiLeaks called it the "Collateral Murder" video, and it attracted widespread coverage. On July 25, it released the Afghan war documents, and in October the Iraq War documents
, internal military war logs and diaries. Manning is also alleged to have given them 251,287 U.S. state department cables—written by 260 embassies and consulates in 180 countries—which were passed by Assange to several news organizations. Several thousand of them were published in stages, the first by WikiLeaks in February 2010 (the Reykjavik13 document), then from November 29 by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, El País, and others. WikiLeaks said it was the largest set of confidential documents ever released into the public domain.
" hacker convicted in 2004 of having accessed The New York Times computer network without permission. Lamo had been profiled that day by Kevin Poulsen
in Wired magazine after being hospitalized and diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Poulsen, now a reporter, is himself a former hacker who had used Lamo as a source several times over the years.
According to Lamo, Manning sent him several encrypted e-mails on May 20 after seeing a tweet from Lamo about WikiLeaks. Lamo said he was unable to decrypt the e-mails but replied anyway, not knowing the recipient or being able to read the content, and invited the e-mailer to chat on AOL IM. Manning sent him more e-mails, also encrypted. Lamo said he later turned these and the earlier e-mails over to the FBI without having read them. In a series of chats from May 21 until May 25/26, Manning—using the handle "Bradass87"—apparently told Lamo that he had leaked classified material. He introduced himself to Lamo as "an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern Baghdad, pending discharge for 'adjustment disorder' in lieu of 'gender identity disorder'."
Just over 10 minutes later he asked Lamo: "If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do? Lamo told him: "I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection." Manning told Lamo he felt isolated, and had "lost all of my emotional support channels ... family, boyfriend, trusting colleagues ... im a mess."
He said he had started to help WikiLeaks around Thanksgiving in November 2009, after WikiLeaks had released the 9/11 pager messages. He said he recognized they had come from an NSA database, and told Lamo it made him feel comfortable about stepping forward. He told Lamo that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
"and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and finds an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public ... everywhere there's a US post ... there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed". Lamo asked what kind of material, and Manning replied: "uhm ... crazy, almost criminal political backdealings ... the non-PR-versions of world events and crises ..."
He told Lamo he had erased CD-RW
s containing Lady Gaga
songs, and had rewritten them with the downloaded documents:
He said he hoped the material would lead to "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms," and if not we're "doomed as a species...". He said the reaction to the Baghdad airstrike video had given him hope: "CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed ... Twitter exploded ..." He continued: "i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are ... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.
Later that day he said the incident that "got [him] the most" was when 15 detainees were arrested by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing anti-Iraqi literature. He was asked by the army to investigate who the "bad guys" were, he said. He told Lamo he discovered the detainees had printed what he called a scholarly critique of the Iraqi prime minister, one called "Where did the money go?" that followed what Manning said was a corruption trail within the Iraqi cabinet. He reported this to his commanding officer, but said "he didn't want to hear any of it"; he said the officer told him to help the Iraqi police find more detainees. Manning said he realized, "i was actively involved in something that i was completely against ..."
Lamo told Wired he had given money to WikiLeaks in the past, and that the decision to go to the authorities had not been an easy one. He said he believed lives were in danger: "[Manning] was in a war zone and basically trying to vacuum up as much classified information as he could, and just throwing it up into the air." Lamo said he had offered journalist-source anonymity to Manning during the chats, but he approached federal agents shortly after their first chat. Jonathan V. Last
wrote that Lamo discussed what Manning had told him with Chet Uber of the volunteer group, Project Vigilant, which researches cyber crime, and Uber reportedly told Lamo to go to the FBI. On May 25, Lamo met with FBI and Army CID officers at a Starbucks near his home in California, where he showed them the chat logs. He met them again on May 27, at which point they told him Manning had been arrested in Iraq the day before.
The news of his arrest was broken on June 6 by Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen, who had written the May 20 Wired profile of Lamo. Daniel Domscheit-Berg described it as the worst moment in the history of WikiLeaks. Wired published around 25 percent of the chat logs on June 6 and June 10, saying the remainder either infringed Manning's privacy or compromised sensitive military information. Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post published excerpts on June 10, and on June 19 BoingBoing published what it said was a more complete version.
Glenn Greenwald
, writing in Salon in December 2010, called the failure to publish the logs in full "easily one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year," writing that Poulsen and Wired had helped conceal the truth about the arrest. "In doing so," he argued, "they have actively shielded Poulsen's longtime associate, Adrian Lamo—as well as government investigators—from having their claims about Manning's statements scrutinized, and have enabled Lamo to drive much of the reporting of this story by spouting whatever he wants about Manning's statements without any check." Wireds editor, Evan Hansen, wrote that the logs included sensitive personal information that had no bearing on WikiLeaks, and that it would serve no purpose to publish them. Wired eventually published the full logs in July 2011.
in Kuwait. He was charged on July 5 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice
(UCMJ) with violations of UCMJ Articles 92 and 134 for "transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system in connection with the leaking of a video of a helicopter attack in Iraq in 2007," and "communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source and disclosing classified information concerning the national defense with reason to believe that the information could cause injury to the United States," between November 19, 2009, and May 27, 2010. He was also one of those named in the Twitter subpoena
later in December, when the U.S. government tried to obtain access to the Twitter accounts of several of those involved.
On March 1, 2011, an additional 22 charges were preferred, including wrongfully obtaining classified material for the purpose of posting it on the Internet, knowing that the information would be accessed by the enemy; the illegal transmission of defense information; fraud; and aiding the enemy. CBS reported that the new charges involved the leaking of the Afghan and Iraq war logs, and a quarter of a million State Department cables; according to ABC News, the charge sheets said Manning had transferred 380,000 records about Iraq, and 90,000 about Afghanistan. In all, CBS said, he is accused of having leaked over half a million documents and two videos. Prosecutors told Manning's lawyers they would not seek the death penalty, though the charge of aiding the enemy is a capital offense. They said if convicted he will face life imprisonment, reduction in rank to the lowest enlisted pay grade, a dishonorable discharge, and loss of pay and allowances.
, a former military attorney and member of the United States Army Reserve
. Coombs said in December 2010 that the guards were professional, and had not tried to bully, harass, or embarrass Manning. He was allowed outside his cell to walk for up to one hour a day, shackled. There was access to television for limited periods when it was placed in the corridor outside his cell. He was allowed to keep one book and one magazine in his cell—according to Leigh and Harding, he requested Immanuel Kant
's Critique of Pure Reason
(1781)—but otherwise no writing materials, though access to them was given during allotted times. He was shackled during visits.
A Prevention of Injury order is one stop short of suicide watch. It entails checks by guards every five minutes, and no sleeping during the day. His lawyer said he was not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am at weekends) and 8 pm, and if he tried to, was made to stand or sit up. He was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into his mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded. Until March 2011 he was required to sleep in boxer shorts, and had experienced chafing of the skin from the heavy blanket. On March 2, he was told that an Article 138 complaint filed in January by his lawyer—asking that he be removed from maximum custody and prevention-of-injury watch—had been denied. His lawyer said Manning subsequently joked to the guards that, if he wanted to harm himself, he could do so "with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops." This resulted in him being required to sleep without clothing and present himself naked outside his cell for morning inspection, which his lawyer described as ritual humiliation, though from around March 10 onwards he was given a wrap-around smock with Velcro fasteners to sleep in. In response to the incident, the brig psychiatrist classified him as at low risk of suicide.
and Pentagon Papers
whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
, a WikiLeaks volunteer, compared the treatment to what happened inside the Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq. Ellsberg wrote that it amounted to "no-touch torture", and that its purpose was to demoralize Manning so he would implicate WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
A Quantico spokesman said in January 2011 that allegations of mistreatment were "poppycock," and that Manning had been designated "maximum custody" because his escape would pose a national security risk. The spokesman said Manning could talk to guards and prisoners in other cells, though he could not see the prisoners, and left his cell for a daily hour of exercise, and for showers, phone calls, meetings with his lawyer, and weekend visits by friends and relatives. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell
and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson
visited Quantico in February 2011 to examine the conditions of the detention. Morrell said he was impressed by the professionalism of the staff, and that Manning's housing and treatment were appropriate. He said: "It just so happens that the configuration of the brig is that every individual is confined to his or her own cell. He's being provided well-balanced, nutritious meals three times a day. He receives visitors and mail, and can write letters. He routinely meets with doctors, as well as his attorney. He's allowed to make telephone calls. And he is being treated just like every other detainee in the brig."
Juan E. Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, submitted an inquiry about Manning to the U.S. State Department around January 2011, and in April accused the government of prevarication in response to his request for an unmonitored meeting with Manning, saying he was deeply disappointed and frustrated. Amnesty International issued a complaint to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and asked the British government to intervene on the grounds that Manning is a British citizen by descent through his Welsh mother. The British Embassy in Washington expressed concern to the State Department in March; Manning's case was raised in the British parliament by Labour MP Ann Clwyd
, who is Welsh; and in April Manning's mother asked that British consular officials visit him in prison. Manning himself has not asked for assistance from the British government, and his lawyer has said Manning does not regard himself as a British citizen.
In March, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley
, speaking to a small audience, called Manning's treatment "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid"; he resigned two days later, reportedly under pressure from the White House. His remark, described as a personal opinion, prompted reporters to ask President Obama to comment on Manning's detention at a news conference; he replied: "... I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assured me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well." He added later that Manning had broken the law.
In April, 295 scholars signed a letter published in the New York Review of Books objecting to the conditions of Manning's detention. Signatories included Yochai Benkler
and Laurence Tribe
of Harvard Law School
and Bruce Ackerman
of Yale Law School
. The letter said the conditions of the detention were a violation of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against punishment without trial, and that if the conditions continued they might amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture: "procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."
, a new medium-security facility in Fort Leavenworth
, Kansas. The prevention-of-injury order was lifted, his clothes were not removed at night, and he was placed in a cell with a large window with natural light and a normal mattress. He was able to mix with other pre-trial detainees, write whenever he wanted, and keep personal objects, such as books and letters, in his cell.
will be held on December 16 in Fort Meade, Maryland.
, who contributed $5,000; Ray McGovern
, a former CIA analyst; and Ann Wright
, a retired army colonel. Rallies were held in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and Ireland, and by January 2011 donations for Manning's defense had risen to over $100,000, including $15,100 from WikiLeaks.
The hacker group Anonymous
threatened in March 2011 to disrupt activities at Quantico by cyber-attacking communications and exposing information about personnel, calling it "Operation Bradical."
Manning was one of 241 candidates listed for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
Other
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
soldier who was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
on suspicion of having passed restricted material to the website WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
. He was charged in July that year with transferring classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
data onto his personal computer, and communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source. An additional 22 charges were preferred
Preferred charge
A preferred charge is an interim step in the United States' military justice system.According to Jonathon Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the US military justice system equivalent of a formal charge is only leveled...
in March 2011, including "aiding the enemy," a capital offense, though prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. He was found fit to face court martial
Courts-martial in the United States
Courts-martial in the United States are criminal trials conducted by the U.S. military. Most commonly, courts-martial are convened to try members of the U.S. military for violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice , which is the U.S. military's criminal code...
in April 2011, and currently awaits the first hearing.
Manning had been assigned in October 2009 to a unit of the 10th Mountain Division, based near Baghdad. There he had access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet
SIPRNet
The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network is "a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information by packet switching over the TCP/IP protocols in a 'completely secure' environment"...
), used by the United States government to transmit classified information. He was arrested after Adrian Lamo
Adrian Lamo
Adrian Lamo is a threat analyst and "grey hat" hacker. He first gained media attention for breaking into several high-profile computer networks, including those of The New York Times, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, culminating in his 2003 arrest...
, a computer hacker, reported to the FBI that Manning had told him during online chats in May 2010 that he had downloaded material from SIPRNet and passed it to WikiLeaks. The leaked material is said to have included 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables
United States diplomatic cables leak
The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...
; footage of a July 2007 Baghdad airstrike
July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike
The July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrikes were a series of air-to-ground attacks conducted by a team of two United States Army AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, in the district of New Baghdad in Baghdad, during the insurgency that followed the Iraq War.In the first strike "Crazyhorse 1/8"...
; and footage of the May 2009 Granai airstrike
Granai airstrike
The Granai airstrike, sometimes called the Granai massacre, refers to the killing of a large number of Afghan civilians, mostly children, and including women, by American aircraft on May 4, 2009, in the village of Granai in Farah Province, south of Herat, Afghanistan...
in Afghanistan.
Manning was held in maximum custody beginning in July 2010 in the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico
Marine Corps Brig, Quantico
Marine Corps Brig, Quantico is a Level 1 facility military prison operated at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia. By definition, Level 1 means that it can house relatively few inmates and is not equipped for sentences over 90 days.In practice, the facility can house approximately 250...
, Virginia, which in effect meant solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
, conditions that Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
called harsh and punitive. In April 2011, 295 scholars, including legal scholars and philosophers signed a letter saying the conditions he experienced amounted to a violation of the U.S. Constitution; later that month the Pentagon transferred him to a medium-security facility in Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth is a United States Army facility located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, immediately north of the city of Leavenworth in the upper northeast portion of the state. It is the oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C. and has been in operation for over 180 years...
, Kansas, allowing him to interact with other pre-trial detainees.
An article 32 hearing
Article 32 hearing
An Article 32 hearing is a proceeding under the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice, similar to that of a preliminary hearing in civilian law. Its name is derived from UCMJ section VII Article An Article 32 hearing is a proceeding under the United States Uniform Code of Military...
will be held on December 16 in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Early life and education
Manning and an older sister were born in Crescent, OklahomaCrescent, Oklahoma
Crescent is a city in Logan County, Oklahoma, United States. The population inside the city limits was 1,281 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, to Susan Fox, born in 1953 in Wales, and her American husband, Brian Manning. His father had been in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
for five years; his parents met when his father was stationed in Wales at Cawdor Barracks. Manning was raised in Crescent, where his father worked as an Information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
manager for a rental car agency. The younger Manning was small for his age—as an adult, he reached just 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) and weighed 105 lb (47.6 kg)—good at the saxophone, science, and computer games, and even in elementary school had said he wanted to join the U.S. Army. One teacher told reporters that Manning was smart and opinionated, but was never in trouble. He was one of the few people in his community who openly rejected religion; David Leigh
David Leigh
David Leigh is a British journalist and author, currently investigations executive editor of The Guardian.-Early life:Leigh was born in 1946 and educated at Nottingham High School and King's College, Cambridge, receiving a research degree from Cambridge in 1968.-Career:Leigh has been a prominent...
and Luke Harding
Luke Harding
Luke Daniel Harding is a British political journalist working for The Guardian newspaper, formerly based in Russia.-Early life, education and career:...
write that he would refuse to do homework related to the Bible, and remained silent during the reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance
Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of loyalty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942...
. They also write that his father was strict with him, which may have contributed to his becoming introverted and withdrawn, something that deepened when at age 13 he began to question his sexual orientation.
One neighbor said his mother had difficulty adjusting to life in the U.S., and his father was often away, so Manning was largely left to fend for himself. His parents divorced when he was 13, and he moved with his mother to Haverfordwest
Haverfordwest
Haverfordwest is the county town of Pembrokeshire, Wales and serves as the County's principal commercial and administrative centre. Haverfordwest is the most populous urban area in Pembrokeshire, with a population of 13,367 in 2001; though its community boundaries make it the second most populous...
, Wales, attending the local Tasker Milward school
Tasker-Milward V.C. School
Tasker Milward Voluntary Controlled School is an English medium secondary school in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. It has over 1,000 students...
. One girl told a reporter that Bradley had "an attitude." He was said to have spent lunch time at the school's computer club, building his own website. Tom Dyer, who was at school with him, told reporters Manning would speak out if there was anything he disagreed with, which included having altercations with teachers. He said Manning was bullied because he was an American, the only one at the school; other students would impersonate his accent and mannerisms. He was also targeted for being effeminate; Denver Nicks writes that he had told his schoolfriends in Oklahoma that he was gay, but he was not open about it at school in Wales.
He was miserable in Wales, and decided to return to the United States after sitting his GCSEs
General Certificate of Secondary Education
The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills...
, moving in with his father, sister, and his father's second wife in Oklahoma City. He took a job with a software company, Zoto, and was apparently happy for a time, but was let go after four months, and became increasingly depressed. In March 2006, he reportedly threatened his father's wife with a butcher's knife during an argument. She called the police, and he was escorted from the house. He lived in the pick-up truck his father had given him, and took several low-paid jobs, before moving in with his father's sister, Debra Manning, in Washington, D.C.
Enlistment in the U.S. Army and deployment to Iraq
He enlisted in the army in October 2007, doing his basic training at Fort Leonard WoodFort Leonard Wood (military base)
Fort Leonard Wood is a United States Army installation located in the Missouri Ozarks. The main gate is located on the southern boundary of St. Robert. The post was created in December 1940 and named in honor of General Leonard Wood, former Chief of Staff, in January 1941...
, Missouri, and after graduating in April 2008 moved to Fort Huachuca
Fort Huachuca
Fort Huachuca is a United States Army installation under the command of the United States Army Installation Management Command. It is located in Cochise County, in southeast Arizona, about north of the border with Mexico. Beginning in 1913, for 20 years the fort was the base for the "Buffalo...
, Arizona, where he trained as an intelligence analyst
Intelligence analysis
Intelligence analysis is the process of taking known information about situations and entities of strategic, operational, or tactical importance, characterizing the known, and, with appropriate statements of probability, the future actions in those situations and by those entities...
. Nicks writes that he was reprimanded while there for posting messages to friends on YouTube that apparently revealed sensitive information. In August 2008, he was sent to Fort Drum
Fort Drum
Fort Drum is a United States Army base in New York near the Canadian border.Fort Drum may also refer to:*Fort Drum, Florida, a nearly-uninhabited town in the United States*Fort Drum , Philippines...
in Jefferson County, New York, where he waited to be sent to Iraq. It was while there in the fall of 2008 that he met Tyler Watkins, with whom he had his first serious relationship, posting happily on Facebook about it. Nicks writes that it appears to have ended by September 2009, though Leigh and Harding say it ended around May 5, 2010. Watkins was studying neuroscience and psychology at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
near Boston, and Manning would regularly travel there to visit him. It was at Brandeis that he was introduced to Watkins's network of friends, and the university's hacker community, as well as its ideas about the importance of information being free. He visited Boston University's "hackerspace
Hackerspace
A hackerspace or hackspace is a location where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and/or collaborate...
" workshop, and met its founder, David House, the computer scientist and MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
researcher who has been allowed to visit him in jail twice a month.
While at Fort Drum, Manning had already begun to lose control, according to Steve Fishman in New York magazine, falling out with roommates, and screaming at superior officers. He said he was being bullied for being gay, and by August 2009 had been referred to an Army mental-health counsellor. In October 2009, despite the doubts about his fitness to be deployed, he was sent to Iraq with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (United States)
The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division is a mountain warfare infantry Brigade Combat Team of the United States Army based at Fort Drum, New York. It is a subordinate unit of the 10th Mountain Division....
, based at Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad. His unhappiness and loneliness continued there. Analysts were working 14–15 hours at a time in what he described as "a dimly lit room crowded to the point you cant move an inch without having to quietly say ‘excuse me sir,’ ‘pardon me sergeant major’ ... cables trip you up everywhere, papers stacked everywhere ..." He called it Groundhog Day.
He was sent to a chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
after officers noticed what ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
said were "odd behaviors." In November 2009—the same month he allegedly first contacted WikiLeaks—he wrote to a gender counselor in the United States, said he felt female, and discussed having surgery. The counselor said it was clear that he was in crisis, partly because of his gender confusion, but also because he was opposed to the kind of war that he now found himself involved in. On May 7, 2010, he reportedly punched a woman officer in the face, and was demoted from Specialist
Specialist (rank)
Specialist is one of the four junior enlisted ranks in the U.S. Army, just above Private First Class and equivalent in pay grade to Corporal. Unlike Corporals, Specialists are not considered junior non-commissioned officers...
to Private First Class
Private First Class
Private First Class is a military rank held by junior enlisted persons.- Singapore :The rank of Private First Class in the Singapore Armed Forces lies between the ranks of Private and Lance-Corporal . It is usually held by conscript soldiers midway through their national service term...
. He was also told he would be discharged from the army.
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks was set up in late 2006 as a disclosure portal, initially using the Wikipedia model, where volunteers would write up and analyze classified or restricted material submitted by whistleblowers, or material that was in some other way legally threatened. It was Julian AssangeJulian Assange
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
—an Australian with a background in computer hacking, and the de facto editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks—who had the idea of creating what he saw as an "open-source, democratic intelligence agency." The wiki element was abandoned, but the site remained open for the anonymous submission of leaked documents, using OpenSSL
OpenSSL
OpenSSL is an open source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions...
, Freenet
Freenet
Freenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. According to Clarke, Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and...
, PGP, and Tor
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
.
The New York Times wrote in December 2010 that the U.S. government was trying to discover whether Assange had been a passive recipient of material from Manning, or had encouraged or helped him to extract the files; if the latter, Assange could be charged with conspiracy. According to Daniel Domscheit-Berg
Daniel Domscheit-Berg
-External links:*, the whistleblower website started by Domscheit-Berg* collected news and commentary at Der Spiegel...
, a former WikiLeaks spokesman, part of the WikiLeaks security concept was that they did not know who their sources were. WikiLeaks did not identify Manning as the source of the material, and according to NBC in January 2011, the U.S. government could find no evidence of direct contact between Manning and Assange. Manning told Lamo during their online chats in May 2010 that he had developed a relationship with Assange, but knew little about him. Lamo alleged later that Manning also said he had communicated directly with Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service, and that Assange had "coached" him. Lamo is the only source of these allegations; he said these statements from Manning were in the unpublished parts of the chat logs, but that the FBI had taken his hard drive so he no longer had access to the logs.
Manning's access to SIPRNet, material released by WikiLeaks
Manning is said to have first contacted WikiLeaks in November 2009, days after it posted 570,000 pager messages from the September 11, 2001, attacks. From his workstation in Iraq, Manning had access to SIPRNet and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications SystemJoint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System
The Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System , is a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Department of State to transmit classified information by packet switching over TCP/IP in a secure environment.It is cleared...
, and in late 2009 he found the Apache helicopter video. He told Lamo: "At first glance it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter. No big deal ... about two dozen more where that came from, right? But something struck me as odd with the van thing, and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory. So I looked into it."
Manning's former partner, Tyler Watkins, told reporters that, while on leave in Boston in January 2010, Manning said he had found some sensitive information and was considering leaking it. During the same month Manning began posting on Facebook in a way that suggested he was upset about something. According to The Daily Telegraph, he wrote, "Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast," and said he was livid after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend."
On February 18, WikiLeaks posted the first of the material that allegedly came from him, a diplomatic cable dated January 13, 2010, from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
, Iceland—a document now known as Reykjavik13. In the chat log, Manning called this a "test" document. On March 15, WikiLeaks posted a 32-page report written in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Defense about WikiLeaks itself. On March 29, it posted U.S. State Department profiles of politicians in Iceland.
On April 5, it published the Apache helicopter video of the July 2007 Baghdad airstrike, which Manning is alleged to have passed on in February; WikiLeaks called it the "Collateral Murder" video, and it attracted widespread coverage. On July 25, it released the Afghan war documents, and in October the Iraq War documents
Iraq War documents leak
The Iraq War documents leak is the unsanctioned disclosure of a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 to several international media organizations and published on the Internet by WikiLeaks on 2010. The files record...
, internal military war logs and diaries. Manning is also alleged to have given them 251,287 U.S. state department cables—written by 260 embassies and consulates in 180 countries—which were passed by Assange to several news organizations. Several thousand of them were published in stages, the first by WikiLeaks in February 2010 (the Reykjavik13 document), then from November 29 by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, El País, and others. WikiLeaks said it was the largest set of confidential documents ever released into the public domain.
Discharge, chats with Adrian Lamo
On May 7, 2010, after punching a female officer in the face, Manning was demoted and told he was about to be discharged. On May 20, he contacted Adrian Lamo, a former "grey hatGrey hat
A grey hat, in the hacking community, refers to a skilled hacker whose activities fall somewhere between white and black hat hackers on a variety of spectra. It may relate to whether they sometimes arguably act illegally, though in good will, or to show how they disclose vulnerabilities...
" hacker convicted in 2004 of having accessed The New York Times computer network without permission. Lamo had been profiled that day by Kevin Poulsen
Kevin Poulsen
Kevin Lee Poulsen is a former black hat hacker. He is currently News Editor at Wired.com.-Biography:...
in Wired magazine after being hospitalized and diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Poulsen, now a reporter, is himself a former hacker who had used Lamo as a source several times over the years.
According to Lamo, Manning sent him several encrypted e-mails on May 20 after seeing a tweet from Lamo about WikiLeaks. Lamo said he was unable to decrypt the e-mails but replied anyway, not knowing the recipient or being able to read the content, and invited the e-mailer to chat on AOL IM. Manning sent him more e-mails, also encrypted. Lamo said he later turned these and the earlier e-mails over to the FBI without having read them. In a series of chats from May 21 until May 25/26, Manning—using the handle "Bradass87"—apparently told Lamo that he had leaked classified material. He introduced himself to Lamo as "an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern Baghdad, pending discharge for 'adjustment disorder' in lieu of 'gender identity disorder'."
Just over 10 minutes later he asked Lamo: "If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do? Lamo told him: "I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection." Manning told Lamo he felt isolated, and had "lost all of my emotional support channels ... family, boyfriend, trusting colleagues ... im a mess."
He said he had started to help WikiLeaks around Thanksgiving in November 2009, after WikiLeaks had released the 9/11 pager messages. He said he recognized they had come from an NSA database, and told Lamo it made him feel comfortable about stepping forward. He told Lamo that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
"and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and finds an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public ... everywhere there's a US post ... there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed". Lamo asked what kind of material, and Manning replied: "uhm ... crazy, almost criminal political backdealings ... the non-PR-versions of world events and crises ..."
He told Lamo he had erased CD-RW
CD-RW
A CD-RW is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released....
s containing Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
songs, and had rewritten them with the downloaded documents:
He said he hoped the material would lead to "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms," and if not we're "doomed as a species...". He said the reaction to the Baghdad airstrike video had given him hope: "CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed ... Twitter exploded ..." He continued: "i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are ... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.
Later that day he said the incident that "got [him] the most" was when 15 detainees were arrested by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing anti-Iraqi literature. He was asked by the army to investigate who the "bad guys" were, he said. He told Lamo he discovered the detainees had printed what he called a scholarly critique of the Iraqi prime minister, one called "Where did the money go?" that followed what Manning said was a corruption trail within the Iraqi cabinet. He reported this to his commanding officer, but said "he didn't want to hear any of it"; he said the officer told him to help the Iraqi police find more detainees. Manning said he realized, "i was actively involved in something that i was completely against ..."
Lamo's approach to the FBI, partial publication of the chat logs
Jonathan V. Last
Jonathan V. Last is a contributing writer at The Weekly Standard and has a weekly editorial column in The Philadelphia Inquirer.Last has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Post, Salon.com, Slate, The Washington Times, The New York Press,...
wrote that Lamo discussed what Manning had told him with Chet Uber of the volunteer group, Project Vigilant, which researches cyber crime, and Uber reportedly told Lamo to go to the FBI. On May 25, Lamo met with FBI and Army CID officers at a Starbucks near his home in California, where he showed them the chat logs. He met them again on May 27, at which point they told him Manning had been arrested in Iraq the day before.
The news of his arrest was broken on June 6 by Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen, who had written the May 20 Wired profile of Lamo. Daniel Domscheit-Berg described it as the worst moment in the history of WikiLeaks. Wired published around 25 percent of the chat logs on June 6 and June 10, saying the remainder either infringed Manning's privacy or compromised sensitive military information. Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post published excerpts on June 10, and on June 19 BoingBoing published what it said was a more complete version.
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator before becoming a contributor to Salon.com, where he focuses on political and legal topics...
, writing in Salon in December 2010, called the failure to publish the logs in full "easily one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year," writing that Poulsen and Wired had helped conceal the truth about the arrest. "In doing so," he argued, "they have actively shielded Poulsen's longtime associate, Adrian Lamo—as well as government investigators—from having their claims about Manning's statements scrutinized, and have enabled Lamo to drive much of the reporting of this story by spouting whatever he wants about Manning's statements without any check." Wireds editor, Evan Hansen, wrote that the logs included sensitive personal information that had no bearing on WikiLeaks, and that it would serve no purpose to publish them. Wired eventually published the full logs in July 2011.
Arrest and charges
Manning was arrested on May 26, 2010, and held at first in a military jail at Camp ArifjanCamp Arifjan
Camp Arifjan is an Army installation located in the State of Kuwait which accommodates elements of the US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps and US Coast Guard. The camp was funded and built by the government of Kuwait. Military personnel from the United Kingdom, Australia, Romania and Poland are...
in Kuwait. He was charged on July 5 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice
Uniform Code of Military Justice
The Uniform Code of Military Justice , is the foundation of military law in the United States. It is was established by the United States Congress in accordance with the authority given by the United States Constitution in Article I, Section 8, which provides that "The Congress shall have Power . ....
(UCMJ) with violations of UCMJ Articles 92 and 134 for "transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system in connection with the leaking of a video of a helicopter attack in Iraq in 2007," and "communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source and disclosing classified information concerning the national defense with reason to believe that the information could cause injury to the United States," between November 19, 2009, and May 27, 2010. He was also one of those named in the Twitter subpoena
Twitter subpoena
On 14 December 2010, the United States Department of Justice issued a subpoena accompanied by a national security letter to Twitter in relation to ongoing investigations of WikiLeaks...
later in December, when the U.S. government tried to obtain access to the Twitter accounts of several of those involved.
On March 1, 2011, an additional 22 charges were preferred, including wrongfully obtaining classified material for the purpose of posting it on the Internet, knowing that the information would be accessed by the enemy; the illegal transmission of defense information; fraud; and aiding the enemy. CBS reported that the new charges involved the leaking of the Afghan and Iraq war logs, and a quarter of a million State Department cables; according to ABC News, the charge sheets said Manning had transferred 380,000 records about Iraq, and 90,000 about Afghanistan. In all, CBS said, he is accused of having leaked over half a million documents and two videos. Prosecutors told Manning's lawyers they would not seek the death penalty, though the charge of aiding the enemy is a capital offense. They said if convicted he will face life imprisonment, reduction in rank to the lowest enlisted pay grade, a dishonorable discharge, and loss of pay and allowances.
Detention at Marine Corps Base Quantico
On July 29, 2010, Manning was moved from Kuwait to the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, and classified as a "maximum custody detainee" held under a "Prevention of Injury" assignment until April 2011. At Quantico he was detained in a 6 x 12 ft cell, with no window, furnished with a bed, toilet and sink, and with meals taken in his cell. According to The Washington Post, the facility had 30 cells built in a U shape, and although the detainees could talk to one another, they were unable to see each other, according to his lawyer, David CoombsDavid Edward Coombs
David Edward Coombs is a United States military defense counsel notable for his role in several high-profile cases.Coombs spent twelve years on active duty service with the United States Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps...
, a former military attorney and member of the United States Army Reserve
United States Army Reserve
The United States Army Reserve is the federal reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the reserve components of the United States Army....
. Coombs said in December 2010 that the guards were professional, and had not tried to bully, harass, or embarrass Manning. He was allowed outside his cell to walk for up to one hour a day, shackled. There was access to television for limited periods when it was placed in the corridor outside his cell. He was allowed to keep one book and one magazine in his cell—according to Leigh and Harding, he requested Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
's Critique of Pure Reason
Critique of Pure Reason
The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement...
(1781)—but otherwise no writing materials, though access to them was given during allotted times. He was shackled during visits.
A Prevention of Injury order is one stop short of suicide watch. It entails checks by guards every five minutes, and no sleeping during the day. His lawyer said he was not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am at weekends) and 8 pm, and if he tried to, was made to stand or sit up. He was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into his mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded. Until March 2011 he was required to sleep in boxer shorts, and had experienced chafing of the skin from the heavy blanket. On March 2, he was told that an Article 138 complaint filed in January by his lawyer—asking that he be removed from maximum custody and prevention-of-injury watch—had been denied. His lawyer said Manning subsequently joked to the guards that, if he wanted to harm himself, he could do so "with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops." This resulted in him being required to sleep without clothing and present himself naked outside his cell for morning inspection, which his lawyer described as ritual humiliation, though from around March 10 onwards he was given a wrap-around smock with Velcro fasteners to sleep in. In response to the incident, the brig psychiatrist classified him as at low risk of suicide.
Manning letter from jail
Manning's lawyer released an 11-page letter from Manning on March 10, 2011, written to the U.S. military in response to their decision to retain his Prevention of Injury status. In the letter, he described having been placed on suicide watch for three days in January, and having had his clothing removed, apart from underwear, as well as prescription eyeglasses; he said the loss of the latter forced him to sit in "essential blindness." He wrote that he believed this was done as retribution for a protest his supporters had held outside the jail the day before; he alleged that, just before the suicide watch began, the guards began harassing him and issuing conflicting orders, telling him to turn left, then not to turn left. He also described being required to sleep without clothes and stand naked for morning parade: "The guard told me to stand at parade rest, with my hands behind my back and my legs spaced shoulder width apart. I stood at "parade rest" for about three minutes until the DBS [duty brig supervisor] arrived. ... The DBS looked at me, paused for a moment, and then continued to the next detainee's cell. I was incredibly embarrassed at having all these people stare at me naked. ..." He wrote that the smock he was later given to wear at night was coarse and uncomfortable, and that he regarded the removal of his other clothing as unlawful pretrial punishment.Complaints about detention, government response
The conditions of his detention prompted international concern. David House, the computer scientist allowed to visit him twice a month, said in December 2010 that he had watched Manning change from an intelligent young man to someone who appeared catatonic and had difficulty conducting a conversation. Democratic Rep. Dennis KucinichDennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
and Pentagon Papers
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
, a WikiLeaks volunteer, compared the treatment to what happened inside the Abu Ghraib
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to public attention...
prison in Iraq. Ellsberg wrote that it amounted to "no-touch torture", and that its purpose was to demoralize Manning so he would implicate WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
A Quantico spokesman said in January 2011 that allegations of mistreatment were "poppycock," and that Manning had been designated "maximum custody" because his escape would pose a national security risk. The spokesman said Manning could talk to guards and prisoners in other cells, though he could not see the prisoners, and left his cell for a daily hour of exercise, and for showers, phone calls, meetings with his lawyer, and weekend visits by friends and relatives. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell
Geoff S. Morrell
Geoffrey S. Morrell is an American public affairs person who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and was the Press Secretary of the Department of Defense. He was hired to the position in June 2007 and departed in June 2011...
and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson
Jeh Johnson
Jeh Charles Johnson is an American civil and criminal trial lawyer, currently serving as General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Johnson is a graduate of Morehouse College and Columbia Law School, and is grandson of noted sociologist and Fisk University president Dr. Charles S...
visited Quantico in February 2011 to examine the conditions of the detention. Morrell said he was impressed by the professionalism of the staff, and that Manning's housing and treatment were appropriate. He said: "It just so happens that the configuration of the brig is that every individual is confined to his or her own cell. He's being provided well-balanced, nutritious meals three times a day. He receives visitors and mail, and can write letters. He routinely meets with doctors, as well as his attorney. He's allowed to make telephone calls. And he is being treated just like every other detainee in the brig."
Juan E. Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, submitted an inquiry about Manning to the U.S. State Department around January 2011, and in April accused the government of prevarication in response to his request for an unmonitored meeting with Manning, saying he was deeply disappointed and frustrated. Amnesty International issued a complaint to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and asked the British government to intervene on the grounds that Manning is a British citizen by descent through his Welsh mother. The British Embassy in Washington expressed concern to the State Department in March; Manning's case was raised in the British parliament by Labour MP Ann Clwyd
Ann Clwyd
Ann Clwyd Roberts is a Welsh Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Cynon Valley since 1984.-Early life:Ann Clwyd is the daughter of Gwilym Henri Lewis and Elizabeth Ann Lewis...
, who is Welsh; and in April Manning's mother asked that British consular officials visit him in prison. Manning himself has not asked for assistance from the British government, and his lawyer has said Manning does not regard himself as a British citizen.
In March, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley
Philip J. Crowley
Philip J. “P.J.” Crowley is the former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, having been sworn into office on May 26, 2009. He resigned on March 13, 2011, following comments he made about the treatment of Bradley Manning. Crowley was named the 2011-2012 recipient of the...
, speaking to a small audience, called Manning's treatment "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid"; he resigned two days later, reportedly under pressure from the White House. His remark, described as a personal opinion, prompted reporters to ask President Obama to comment on Manning's detention at a news conference; he replied: "... I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assured me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well." He added later that Manning had broken the law.
In April, 295 scholars signed a letter published in the New York Review of Books objecting to the conditions of Manning's detention. Signatories included Yochai Benkler
Yochai Benkler
Yochai Benkler is an Israeli-American professor of Law and author. Since 2007, he has been the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.- Biography :In 1984, Benkler...
and Laurence Tribe
Laurence Tribe
Laurence Henry Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. He also works with the firm Massey & Gail LLP on a variety of matters....
of Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
and Bruce Ackerman
Bruce Ackerman
Bruce Arnold Ackerman is an American constitutional law scholar. He is a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School and one of the most frequently cited legal academics in the United States....
of Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
. The letter said the conditions of the detention were a violation of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against punishment without trial, and that if the conditions continued they might amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture: "procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."
Detention at Fort Leavenworth
The Pentagon transferred Manning on April 20, 2011, to the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional FacilityMidwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility
The Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility is a military prison at at 830 Sabalu Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas which opened in 2010.The prison on has a design specification of 512 beds with 43 in special housing and the rest in general housing and dormitory. The prison handles inmates...
, a new medium-security facility in Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth is a United States Army facility located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, immediately north of the city of Leavenworth in the upper northeast portion of the state. It is the oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C. and has been in operation for over 180 years...
, Kansas. The prevention-of-injury order was lifted, his clothes were not removed at night, and he was placed in a cell with a large window with natural light and a normal mattress. He was able to mix with other pre-trial detainees, write whenever he wanted, and keep personal objects, such as books and letters, in his cell.
Article 32 hearing
An article 32 hearingArticle 32 hearing
An Article 32 hearing is a proceeding under the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice, similar to that of a preliminary hearing in civilian law. Its name is derived from UCMJ section VII Article An Article 32 hearing is a proceeding under the United States Uniform Code of Military...
will be held on December 16 in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Friends and supporters
The Bradley Manning Support Network was formed in June 2010 by Mike Gogulski, an American living in Slovakia. Manning's friend, David House, was also involved in founding it, and it was coordinated by Courage to Resist, which supports war resisters within the military. Several notable figures joined its advisory board, including Daniel Ellsberg, one of 30 protesters arrested outside the Quantico base in March 2011; filmmaker Michael MooreMichael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
, who contributed $5,000; Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern
Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them.-Early life:...
, a former CIA analyst; and Ann Wright
Ann Wright
Mary Ann Wright is a former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in...
, a retired army colonel. Rallies were held in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and Ireland, and by January 2011 donations for Manning's defense had risen to over $100,000, including $15,100 from WikiLeaks.
The hacker group Anonymous
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
threatened in March 2011 to disrupt activities at Quantico by cyber-attacking communications and exposing information about personnel, calling it "Operation Bradical."
Manning was one of 241 candidates listed for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
See also
- Classified information in the United StatesClassified information in the United StatesThe United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the...
- Incarceration in the United States
- Information sensitivityInformation sensitivityInformation sensitivity is the control of access to information or knowledge that might result in loss of an advantage or level of security if disclosed to others who might have low or unknown trustability or undesirable intentions....
- Journalism sourcingJournalism sourcingIn journalism, a source is a person, publication, or other record or document that gives timely information. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as "news sources"...
- Espionage Act of 1917Espionage Act of 1917The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...
- McCarran Internal Security ActMcCarran Internal Security ActThe Internal Security Act of 1950, , also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act or the McCarran Act, after Senator Pat McCarran , is a United States federal law of the McCarthy era. It was passed over President Harry Truman's veto...
of 1950
Further reading
Key articles about Lamo and the Lamo-Manning chat log, in order of publication- Poulsen, Kevin. "Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized for Asperger’s", Wired magazine, May 20, 2010.
- Poulsen, Kevin and Zetter, Kim. "U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in WikiLeaks Video Probe", Wired magazine, June 6, 2010.
- Poulsen, Kevin and Zetter, Kim. 'I Can't Believe What I'm Confessing to You': The WikiLeaks Chats", Wired magazine, June 10, 2010.
- Nakashima, Ellen. "Messages from alleged leaker Bradley Manning portray him as despondent soldier", The Washington Post, June 10, 2010.
- Poulsen, Kevin and Zetter, Kim. "Three Weeks After Arrest, Still No Charges in WikiLeaks Probe", Wired magazine, June 16, 2010.
- Xeni, Jardin. "WikiLeaks: a somewhat less redacted version of the Lamo/Manning logs", Boing Boing, June 19, 2010.
- Greenwald, Glenn. "The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired", Salon, December 27, 2010.
- Hansen, Evan and Poulsen, Kevin. "Putting the Record Straight on the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs", Wired, December 28, 2010.
- Greenwald, Glenn. "Wired's refusal to release or comment on the Manning chat logs", Salon, December 29, 2010.
- Firedoglake. "Manning/WikiLeaks timeline", published as a complete version of the released excerpts, accessed March 14, 2011.
- Hansen, Evan. "Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed", Wired, July 13, 2011.
Other
- Democracy Now! "Glenn Greenwald on the Assange Extradition Ruling, the Jailing of Bradley Manning ...", February 24, 2011.